The other day (I think yesterday, Saturday at the earliest... time flies) I did my usual browse-for-new-stuff (Quick Links|New Posts...) and was prompted to log in. Which I did, assuming that my long-term Remember Me session cookie had expired, as it occasionally does. Though at a frequency I do not know (I haven't tried to find the physical cookie file on this device, and if there is an in-browser review and info ability, then I haven't found it), I'm guessing at 3-monthly just by the number of times I think this has happened to me since first joining.

Shortly afterwards, I had to do the same again, but this time did not forget to tick the Remember Me tickbox. Something I invariably do, most times I get surprised by this requirement popping up after however-many months of passive loginability. So, maybe I have three more months (or whatever it is) from this second explicit relogin, ok...

Except that I got the login request again just now. Definitely far earlier than expected. Should I be concerned?

Personal theories: something switched me between https and http, one or both times (unlikely, at least as I've always understood that to work), or perhaps it was fora.xkcd vs forums.xkcd (more possible, but the one I'm on now is the one I first joined via and only during prior network outages have I bothered to double-check there's no access to the other one). Except that the New Posts doesn't seem to switch domains or URI protocol, in normal use. It occasionally appends a GET-method format id string to the URI. That happens sporadically, maybe even rarely (I rarely notice either way, and without apparent link to the need (or otherwise) to re-Remember - rare as such cases are), but no note at all made of the other differences.

Or it's the browser playing up (but only here, not elsewhere). Because the only other method that comes to mind is accidentally clicking Logout, except that this takes two separate taps, logout being below User Control Panel and Profile links on the menu accessed via the hotspot on the right that is my forum name...

Probably nothing, but a cursory search didn't appear to reveal a prior report of this kind. And if it is "just me" I can always live with it. At least until I migrate to another browsing platform for whatever other reasons...

Soupspoon wrote:something switched me between https and http, one or both times (unlikely, at least as I've always understood that to work)

Can't be that, since the forums don't support https.

It occasionally appends a GET-method format id string to the URI.

That's normal. "Remember me" doesn't change how long sessions actually are; rather it stores another cookie that tells it to automatically log on at the beginning of each section. The sid= parameter is added to all links the first time you load a page in a session. I think if it somehow fails to store the session cookie when it logs you in that can log you out (at least, that was the case on an earlier version; I remember an issue with a much earlier version of Safari that automatically previewed frequently-visited sites triggering this issue); I don't know if that's what's happening here, though.

I feel like maybe I've had issues with it logging me out before it should as well (mainly on iPhone), but I haven't kept close enough track so maybe it's just been long enough.

Could be. I only thought in terms of the single (long-term) cookie, without going the extra step. It's not unknown for an image to not load (or occasionally a page to be "spin loading" until I refresh), so a cookie request/delivery, by either side, could occasionally be stymied.

I feel like maybe I've had issues with it logging me out before it should as well (mainly on iPhone), but I haven't kept close enough track so maybe it's just been long enough.

It was just that it was twice within a handful of days that made me note it as unusual. And none of the other places I forumise at1 on this same device do this. Hey ho, though...

1 So sorry! But they mean nothing to me! Just idle flings, and you're the only one I really care about, please believe me baby...

(Just happened to me again. But I'm satisfied that there's nothing to be done right now so, unless this happens significantly more frequently than the current interesting spate/blip, I shall not mention it again. Just an FYI/signoff, though.)

There is an edge case with the remember-me login thing that happens sometimes.

It can happen if your session cookie expires, and then when you come back, you load two pages at once. So for instance, maybe you left the forum open for a while, your session expired, and you click two links quickly. Or you come back after a time and open two bookmarks at once. Sometimes when I'm not thinking I'll open the egosearch and the mod control panel in tabs at the same time, and it happens.

What happens is the first request hits the server, it notices your session expired, and does the "remember me" thing to make you a new session. Then the second request hits the server... but the first page hasn't finished loading yet, so your browser doesn't know about the new session yet, it still sends the old session... the server doesn't recognise it any more, so you get back a brand new not-logged-in session. Then the first page loads, setting your session cookie to the logged-in session id, then the second page loads, overwriting that with the second logged-out session id. And at that point you're stuck, and just have to log in again.

All I can really recommend is: don't do that. Or, when it happens, just log back in. It isn't really something you need to be concerned about, just a bit of an inconvenience sometimes.